Review: The Voice Behind So Many Legendary Movie Stars Comes Out of The Shadows in UNSEEN: A TRIBUTE TO MARNI NIXON

Friday 8 July 2016, 7:00pm, Hayes Theatre, Potts Point

Melody Beck presents a wonderfully researched insight into career of the woman who made so many legendary movie stars sound good in her cabaret UNSEEN: A TRIBUTE TO Marni Nixon.
Accompanied on piano by the amazingly skillful Musical Director John Martin, Melody Beck recreates the well-known songs from the Golden Age of movie musicals as she explains that the voices we know so well did not belong to the faces we saw on screen. Beck steps into the shoes of the Hollywood Secret as she shares Nixon's story from a first person perspective. Based on Beck having actually met Nixon, who is still alive in California, on a couple of occasions, she recounts the songstress' origins from studying classical singing to the question that changed her career when working at MGM in 1947. She recalls the time when TIME Magazine dubbed Nixon "The Ghostess With The Mostess". Her expression of the moments of questioning the studio's honesty in failing to publicly acknowledge that their leading ladies could not hold a tune is poignant. The acceptance that the anonymity was written into the contracts she had signed and that legally they had no obligation to list her in the film credit is shocking in an age when even the smallest job on a film set is listed.
Beck captures Nixon's varied sounds, with the variety of accents and styles, with amazing accuracy. If you shut your eyes you'd think you were listening to soundtrack recordings from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, MY FAIR LADY, WEST SIDE STORY and many other movie musicals. There is a ringing purity in the more classical songs and higher register as Beck presents the songs using a body mic, leaving her hands free and ensuring she isn't restricted by a microphone stand. She interacts well with Martin and presents a lovely balance of humour amongst the truth. Beck's presentation of the voices Nixon replaced demonstrates how necessary Nixon was, and shows Beck's skill for a trained singer to sing so badly off key. Her expression of the relationships Nixon had with the women she was making sound beautiful is wonderfully fun and shows the importance the studios and the performers placed on her involvement, even if it went, for the most part, unrecognised publicly.
UNSEEN: A TRIBUTE TO Marni Nixon is a wonderful look "Behind the Hollywood Curtain" at the truth the major movie studios wanted to keep secret in a time before auto tune. Beck is a delight to watch and listen to making this cabaret a must see for movie musical fans that were captivated with the song and dance filled hits from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

UNSEEN: A TRIBUTE TO Marni Nixon
Written by Melody Beck and Jenny Beck
Starring Melody Beck
Director Christopher Hamilton
Musical Director John Martin

Hayes Theatre, Potts Point Sydney

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